Keep the Home Fires Burning

by Anne Bennett

  Richard allowed himself to be persuaded to accompany his sister, Violet and Peggy to the Christmas Dance on 20 December in the Albert Hall in Chain Walk. Marion watched them all go with pride. The girls had revamped their dresses with lace, ribbons, artificial fur, pearl buttons, and even seed pearls from items of clothing Peggy and Violet had bought from a jumble sale. They had shared the stuff out and worked hard to bring a bit of glamour to tired old dresses, and they all looked so pretty when they set out.

  The dance was a roaring success. Sarah knew exactly what Peggy and Violet had meant when they said that dancing to a real band was much better than dancing to records. The obvious enjoyment the smartly dressed musicians got from playing their sparkling brass instruments spurred the dancers on to greater efforts. The only problem was the terrible shortage of suitable men.

  ‘Richard was in great demand,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Yes,’ Peggy commented. ‘No one seems to care a jot about his two left feet.’

  In actual fact, Richard had picked up more dancing tips than he realised from the girls, so he had no problem with the dancing that night. It had also given him the opportunity to legitimately hold some very pretty girls in his arms, though he partnered Violet in as many dances as he could and she said nothing about it because no one knew where Richard would be the following Christmas.

  On Christmas Eve, Sarah received a package, the first she had ever had. She knew it was from Sam because his writing had become familiar and she longed to open it, but Marion said she had to wait until Christmas Day, like everyone else. And so for the first time in years she was as anxious as her sisters for Christmas Day to come.

  The next day, Sam’s present was the first one Sarah opened, to reveal dark red gloves, scarf and tam-o’-shanter in the softest wool.

  Marion smiled as she said, ‘I knew all about Sam’s present to you, Sarah, because Peggy told me. Apparently he asked someone’s mother to knit it, and she had only dark red wool, but that didn’t matter because that will go very well with my present to you.’ And she handed Sarah a large parcel.

  It was a thick fur-lined black coat, and for a moment Sarah was speechless, and so, it seemed, was everyone else around the table.

  When Sarah did recover herself enough to say, ‘Ah, Mom, thank you, thank you so much,’ her voice was choked with emotion. She leaned across to give her mother a kiss as she added, ‘I’ve never had so fine a coat.’

  ‘It isn’t new,’ Marion said. ‘I looked for new first, for all it would have taken fourteen points, but in these days of utility clothing the winter coats are not warm enough and you need warmth the hours you’re standing waiting for trams in the winter.’

  ‘So where did you get it?’

  ‘Well, you know I helped out at the Christmas bazaar at the church?’ Marion said. ‘They had this second-hand stall, and when I spotted the coat I knew it was just the thing for you.’

  ‘It’s lovely,’ Sarah said, stroking it almost reverently. ‘It doesn’t matter how bad the weather is now. ‘I’ll never feel the cold dressed up in these lovely things.’

  At the same Christmas bazaar Marion had been able to buy the twins a new skipping rope each, which they badly needed since their old ones were nearly worn through. And they also had Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which she said they would have to share.

  After breakfast Sarah slipped away to her room to read again the back of the beautiful Christmas card from Sam that he had packed in the parcel.

  I wish you a very happy Christmas, my beautiful Sarah.

  I hope you like the things I sent to you.

  I like to imagine that when you put them on, you will think of me.

  With all my love – Sam xxx

  It sent a tingle all through Sarah to read those words because he had never written with all his love before. Their letters, until the arrival of that Christmas card, had been as one friend to another, but his words had changed that a little. She could have told him that that she didn’t need to wear the things he had sent to think of him, for thoughts of him often fluttered into her mind and would give her a feeling like butterflies in her stomach. Not that she could ever tell him these things – that would be far too forward. But she would send a letter to thank him for the lovely things he’d given her as soon as she could.

  After a sumptuous Christmas dinner, Richard offered to play cards with the twins. ‘Sorry I can’t do tricks with them like Sam can,’ he said, ‘but I know a few games I could teach you.’

  ‘And where did you learn card games?’ Marion asked him.

  ‘At the air raid post. It helps pass the time if it’s quiet. They sometimes play at dinner time at work as well, but I steer well clear of that ‘cos they play for money. I work too hard for my wages to fritter it away.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Marion agreed. ‘Your father was never a gambler either.’

  ‘But it’s all right to play for a bit of fun,’ Richard said as he very professionally shuffled the pack he got out of the drawer. ‘Come on, ‘I’ll teach you rummy first.’

  The twins had only ever played snap and happy families, and so were very keen on learning something new. They loved rummy, so then Richard taught them whist, brag and pontoon.

  Eventually Magda said, ‘I’m bored with cards now. Isn’t it a pity that Peggy took the gramophone and records back home?’

  ‘It’s only fair,’ Marion said. ‘She bought it, and maybe she thought her family would benefit from a bit of jollification over Christmas.’

  ‘Well, let’s have our own concert,’ Sarah said. They all just looked at her and she said, ‘Oh, come on. It’s Christmas Day and we all know something we can sing or recite, and the rest of us can join in if we know the words. Remember before we had the gramophone we used to sometimes sing in the cellar?’

  ‘All right,’ Marion said, entering into the spirit of it. ‘I’ll sing you a song from the Great War. I was twelve when it began and I’d been in service then for two years. The poor mistress had four sons and they all enlisted as officers, you know, and only one came back. Sometimes we’d all have a sing in the kitchen of an evening to keep our spirits up, like.’

  ‘Go on then, Mom,’ Sarah said encouragingly and Marion got to her feet and launched into ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’.

  The children had often heard their mom hum the song and sing a line or two, but that afternoon Marion sang it from beginning to end, wordperfect and from the heart. They all knew that she was thinking of their father so far away from his family that day. Sarah also thought of Sam and hoped wherever he was he would come home safe when the war ended.

  There was spontaneous applause at the end, but Magda said, ‘Ooh, Mom, that was a sad one.’

  ‘So it was, Magda,’ Marion said, ‘so it’s up to Richard to cheer us all up.’

  ‘That’s easy,’ Richard said. ‘This is jolly enough, although it is another Great War song.’ With gusto he began, ‘Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag’.

  Everyone joined in and when the song drew to a close, Sarah said, ‘I’m going to change the mood again now because I love Vera Lynn’s song “We’ll Meet Again”, but that’s sad too.’

  It was a lovely song, even though it was plaintive, and it did make them all think what life might be like when the war eventually ended.

  When the song was finished, Magda said, ‘I had better go last and cheer us all up again because I bet Missie will want to sing something else soppy,’ because she knew the song her sister loved.

  ‘“When You Wish Upon a Star” isn’t soppy,’ Missie protested. ‘How can it be? It’s from that film Pinocchio that Richard and Sarah went to see with Sam.’

  ‘That don’t mean it ain’t soppy.’

  Sarah saw the doubtful look flash across Missie’s face and she said, ‘Sing it, for goodness’ sake. It is a lovely song so don’t you let yourself be browbeaten by Magda. She will get her choice after you.’

  So Missie stood and sang her song, and very sweetly
she did it too, and then Magda brought the concert to a close by a rousing rendition of ‘Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major’.

  When she finished, Marion went into the kitchen and came out with a mug of cocoa each and a slice of the eggless chocolate cake she had cooked for tea, and they all looked at her in surprise because generally she didn’t believe in eating between meals.

  ‘Now listen,’ she said. ‘This has been a lovely Christmas Day and I hate to spoil it, but your grandparents will be here in about half an hour’s time so I want you to eat that cake and drink that cocoa and wrap yourselves up warmly and then go out. It’s a fine dry day, for all it’s so cold, and your grandparents won’t stay that long because they hate going home in the pitch black in the blackout. If you stay out for about an hour or so you should be just about back in time to say goodbye to them and then I’ll do some proper tea for you when they’ve gone. How does that suit?’

  It suited very well, and a walk even on a cold day was much more enjoyable than sitting in a warm room anywhere near their grandmother. They finished their cocoa and cake in doublequick time in case she came in before they left. Sarah put on her new coat, and with the gloves on her hands, the scarf around her neck and the tam-o’-shanter at a jaunty angle on her head, she was ready to be off with Missie to one side of her and Magda to another. They went to the park first, in past the deep pits dug at the edges and the furrowed rows ready to plant vegetables where there had used to be lawns and flowerbeds.

  ‘Let’s go down to the lake,’ Richard said, ‘cos it was frozen over before.’

  The lake wasn’t fully frozen any more, though it did have great slabs of ice floating in it. ‘Look, it’s breaking up,’ Richard said, picking up a stone from the vegetable beds and hurling it at the largest ice floe. ‘It must have got warmer.’

  ‘It doesn’t flipping feel like it,’ Sarah said. ‘Come on, a person would stick to the ground if they stayed still long enough.’

  They were not the only ones in the park, by any means. Others were walking off their dinner, and the Whittaker children passed and greeted many people as they made their way round to Aston Hall.

  ‘Dad told us once just one family would live in that gigantic house,’ Magda said, looking at the edifice.

  ‘That’s right,’ Sarah said.

  ‘But why would anyone need that many rooms?’ Missie asked.

  ‘It was just the way it was with rich people,’ Sarah said. ‘They used to have lots of servants to keep it clean and cook and that, but the war has put paid to that, because people have gone into more war-related work now.’

  ‘They haven’t a choice any more, anyroad,’ Richard said. ‘Everyone has to register for war work, and it’s far better paid.’

  ‘I bet Peggy and Violet came from a place like that,’ Magda said.

  Sarah nodded. ‘I’d say so. It mightn’t have been so grand or large but it was something similar all right.’

  ‘They were more than glad to leave, I know that,’ Richard said. ‘Violet told me that herself. She said she hated being at the beck and call of someone else, and being looked down on just because they had money and she didn’t.’

  ‘And I would,’ Magda declared. ‘Anyone would.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Sarah said. ‘So I reckon that even when the war is over, the people who live in these types of houses will find it very hard to get staff to work for them, and a good job too, I say.’

  ‘And I do,’ Richard agreed. ‘Come on, where shall we go now, because we can’t go back yet?’

  ‘What about if we round the park as far as Grosvenor Road and go on to the canal towpath?’ Magda said. ‘If we follow it as far as Rocky Lane we can go home that way.’

  ‘You and your flipping canal,’ Sarah said in mock annoyance. ‘It will be freezing down there today.’

  ‘Well, it’s not going to be blistering hot wherever we go, is it?’ Missie said. ‘And I’d rather face a freezing canal any day than Grandma Murray.’

  Back at the house Marion was valiantly trying to cope with her mother, who went on and on about Tony and what a tragedy his death was all through tea. It wasn’t that they never spoke about him – they spoke about him often, although it had been awakward in the beginning – but Clara’s reminiscences weren’t like that. She went on and on about the tragedy of losing Tony, though she had taken little notice of him when he had been alive. Yet Eddie, who had got to know Marion’s younger son very well, said little, though his saddened eyes spoke volumes. However, nothing Marion said could deflect her mother from her tirade and eventually she would come round to the way that Tony died, and repeat again that she had warned Marion about the gas in the cellar and that if she had heeded her warning then Tony might not have died. Marion could feel the energy draining out of her as she fought the guilt that she was in any way responsible for her son’s death.

  When the children returned with scarlet faces and tingling fingers and toes, the room was beautifully warm from the fire that Marion had kept banked up. Sarah, though, noticed the lines of strain on her mother’s face and she sighed inwardly. She decided to pay no attention to her grandmother and instead began to talk to her grandfather about the walk they had had, with the others chipping in here and there in a way that they knew their grandmother thought unmannerly, but they gave her little chance to say so.

  Marion had to hide her smile for she knew that they had found their own way of dealing with their grandmother, and wished that she could ignore her so easily. With dusk descending Eddie and Clara didn’t stay long after that, and everyone heaved a sigh of relief when they eventually went back home.

  That night, as Magda lay in bed, she gave a sigh of contentment as she said to Sarah, ‘Wasn’t that the greatest Christmas Day ever? And fancy having dripping toast for tea. It’s just about my favourite and I’ve never had it before on Christmas Day.’

  Sarah laughed because it was well known by everyone how much Magda liked dripping toast. She thought it was even better if they opened the door of the range and toasted the bread on the fire using the long toasting forks like they had done that night.

  ‘Yeah, it was a good day,’ she had to agree. ‘The only thing that could make it better was if this blessed war was to end and Dad was to come home again safe and sound.’ And Sam too, she thought to herself, but she didn’t share that with her sisters.

  The dawning of 1942 didn’t fill anyone with enthusiasm, though the young people did take Marion’s words to heart and began going out more. They were well used to the blackout now and were very good at using the shielded torches when batteries for them, which were like gold dust to find in the shops, could be obtained. They went dancing every week – Richard was as keen as the girls were now ? but they also loved the cinema. It was as they arrived home after seeing Citizen Kane in the second week of February that Marion told them it had been on the news that Singapore had surrendered to the Japanese Army, who had also captured 100, 000 servicemen.

  It was a big blow and very bad for morale. Yet life had to go on. Rationing began to bite deeper than ever and Marion and Polly often complained about it as most women did.

  ‘Cheese, margarine and tea last year, and points needed for jam, treacle and syrup now,’ Polly said one day to Marion as they returned to Marion’s house with their shopping.

  ‘I know, and canned meat don’t forget,’ Marion said, as she filled the kettle. ‘I mean Spam don’t taste particularly nice but you can always dress it up a bit and make something more or less edible with it.’

  ‘I know,’ Polly said. ‘There ain’t much else. They say even soap will be rationed later this year.’

  ‘Yeah, and sweets,’ Marion said. ‘Parts of Cadbury’s have gone over to putting cordite in rockets now.’ She added with a wry smile, ‘Must be a bit different from putting soft centres into chocolates. Mind you, clothes rationing gets me down altogether.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Polly agreed. ‘This make do and mend is all very well if you had plenty of clothes to start wi
th.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Marion. ‘But even before rationing some clothes disappeared altogether, or were at the very least in short supply.’

  ‘I thought Father McIntyre was going to organise clothes banks,’ Polly said. ‘Lots of Churches and Mission Halls have been doing that.’

  ‘Yeah, and by the time he gets around to it, the bloody war will be over.’

  ‘I think,’ said Polly, ‘certainly before next winter really sets in, you and I might have to take up knitting.’

  ‘You could be right,’ Marion said. ‘Once upon a time you would never see Ada Shipley at a jumble sale, but now she’s a regular, searching for clothes she can adapt or woollies she can unravel and knit into something else.’

  ‘Well, knitting can’t be that hard,’ Polly said, ‘because there’s plenty at it, particularly at the moment.’

  ‘Make Do and Mend’ was on everyone’s lips in the spring of 1942, and to be a squander bug was to be the worst person in the world. In accordance with that, Magda and Missie and all girls of similar age were taught to knit at school. They just knitted squares at first from any spare wool donated, and these were sewn together to make blankets for the homeless. And they taught their mothers how to do it too, for when they learned that clothing coupons were being reduced from 66 points per person to 48, it was all the incentive they needed to get started.

  The only place to get wool off ration was at the jumble sale, so Marion and Polly would join Ada Shipley and women like her, doing a little tour now and then to see what they could pick up. In the Whittaker house, everyone became involved. Even the twins became adept at unravelling a woollen jumper and then rolling the wool into balls.

  ‘There’s patterns in that magazine Home Notes, and tips on sewing too, making things out of nowt sort of sewing,’ Polly said to Marion one day when they had the knitting mastered.

  ‘Ah, but it’s thrupence a week,’ Marion reminded her. ‘And thrupence is thrupence when all’s said and done. Anyroad, I don’t think that magazines like that are for ordinary people. Wasn’t it that magazine that recommended making a blouse out of old dusters? I mean, I ask you, what woman do you know buys dusters? Even down this road, a duster is some old bit of rag that really has no more wear in it at all.’